


even in a dream

by yuanmau



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game), 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bloodborne Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25812370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuanmau/pseuds/yuanmau
Summary: The garden is pristine as always, the moon glowing bright above his head and washing the scene with a faint silver light. Jiang Cheng wipes the sweat off his brow with a swipe of his arm, dried blood flaking off his sleeve against his face. It would be gone in moments, the same way all the wear and tear on him always disappeared within minutes of entering this place, but he brushes the dust off roughly with his gloved hands anyways.// sangcheng bloodborne au
Relationships: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Niè Huáisāng
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	even in a dream

The garden is pristine as always, the moon glowing bright above his head and washing the scene with a faint silver light. Jiang Cheng wipes the sweat off his brow with a swipe of his arm, dried blood flaking off his sleeve against his face. It would be gone in moments, the same way all the wear and tear on him always disappeared within minutes of entering this place, but he brushes the dust off roughly with his gloved hands anyways. 

He doesn't stop to smell the flowers anymore. The mysticism of the dreamscape flora has long since lost its novelty for him. Instead, he goes to stomp up the stone steps as he always does: head lowered in thought and his hands still pressed to a phantom wound, this time to his abdomen where he had been holding his intestines in a moment before. 

“Welcome home, good hunter.” A lilting voice pulls Jiang Cheng back to this unreal reality and he looks up to face the Doll. He is, as he always is, a vision. Green and metallic fabric lined with gold cascades down around him in drapes and folds, adorned with resplendent jewelry, and his hair flutters in a nonexistent wind. And while his face is covered with his fluttering fan, Jiang Cheng can see his smile from the ceases in his eyes.

As he looks into the Doll’s eyes, the thought strikes him that porcelain shouldn't crease like flesh and skin does. But he has spent many a timeless moment observing the Doll as he flutters through his garden and painting in the back of the Workshop. Every detail was carefully filed away in Jiang Cheng’s mind: the balled joints in the digits of his delicate hands, the sheen of glazed and carefully stained china on every visible inch of what should be skin, the quiet but melodious chiming of porcelain clicking together as he moved. 

He’s been here far too many times for this to matter to him anymore, and instead he sits down heavily on the steps next to the Doll, elbows propped up on his legs and head lolling down with an exhaustion that he remembers but can no longer feel. 

“No echos? I think you’re slipping, good hunter.” A breathy laugh accompanies the gentle mockery, and Jiang Cheng sighs. 

“Fucking beasts,” he growls half-heartedly, his hand hovering over his abdomen where he had been torn open before his hands drop down again. “It got too close, I was distracted. I’ll have to track him down again.” 

“Distracted? That’s not like you.” The fan snaps shut and Jiang Cheng feels it tap him sharply on the shoulder. “And I can’t give you anything if you return in pieces instead of through my lanterns. You need to—”

“I know.” Jiang Cheng snaps, cutting the Doll off. “It won’t happen again.” There was a red ribbon tangled through the beast’s mangy fur and the stutter in his usually sure steps had been enough of an edge for it to rip his flesh apart. In hindsight it was more likely to have been shredded clothing stained with blood, but in the moment hope and despair had gripped Jiang Cheng and blinded him to danger. The thought of finding his brother, who he loathes and aches for with every bone in his body, in the form of a mindless beast— it’s everything he fears. But he knows his brother is elsewhere, and now he has an impossible task to complete before he could ever hope to see morning.

_ Attempt the impossible, _ his father always told him. Told them, to him and his brother. And every time he dies, every time his flesh is shredded to ribbons or his body is crushed to pulp or his mind tears itself apart from horrors that weren’t meant to ever be witnessed, he laughs and despairs at the memory of those words. Empty words spoken to children who were meant to live their lives out in safety, now the only thing that keeps pushing him to his feet to step into the waking world instead of letting himself decay in the ethereal garden he returns to. 

Another sharp tap with the fan snaps him out of his reverie. 

“I’m going, I’m going,” he sighs, standing up and stretching. A few experimental swings with his beast cutter, a few pats at his pocket filled with bolt paper, and he steps towards one of the many gravestones lining the path. 

As he leaves, he could swear he hears a sad sigh from the Doll.

* * *

He returns to the dream minutes, hours, days later, bloodied but triumphant. The night is eternal and the dream is ever-present, any sense of the passage of time long-since purged from his mind. 

When he first woke up here he was disoriented and panicked, and the sight of a man in a wheelchair, stitching distinct across his neck, had only alarmed him more. But the man who introduced himself as Mingjue was so sure in his commands that Jiang Cheng couldn’t help but listen and obey. Go out there, kill, return to the workshop if he needed, and be civil to the doll. 

So he doesn’t think too hard. He leaves, he carves up anything that crosses his path, and returns when he finds a lantern or when his breath stops. Turns off the part of his brain that is screaming that this isn’t right or real, that it can’t still be night, that he can’t still be standing. There’s no place for that in the dream, no time for that as a hunter. 

As he walks up the steps the blood and silvery ichor evaporates into nothing. The Doll is sleeping, and he shakes him by the shoulder gently. The Doll’s eyes are open almost immediately and he stands in a sudden swift motion as though he’s pulled upright by invisible threads. Dull eyes light up upon seeing Jiang Cheng and the expressionless face melts into a bright smile. Jiang Cheng feels the corners of his mouth lifting almost involuntarily in response.

“A successful hunt, I gather?” The Doll says with a jovial lilt to his voice. “Welcome home. And now, what is it you desire?” 

Jiang Cheng says nothing in response, only holds his hand palm-up towards the doll as he always does. On cue, the Doll places his folded up fan into the folds of his clothing and closes his hands around Jiang Cheng’s. A faint glow appears where their hands touch and Jiang Cheng can feel energy surge into him as the echos in his head quiet, the strength of the blood from his slaughtered foes channeled to become his own. He sighs in relief at the quiet and focuses on the grounding presence of the Doll. 

“Would it offend you,” He murmurs, his eyes closed, “If I were to say I desired for you to love me?”

He hears the Doll laugh. 

“I’m a doll,” comes the response. “I don’t think I should be able to be offended. But how foolish of you, to desire love from something like me.”

Jiang Cheng looks up to search the Doll’s eyes. They glisten in a way that glass shouldn’t, yet the eyelashes flutter more delicately than any living being he’s ever seen. The question goes unspoken, but the Doll answers anyways. 

“I don’t think my love is what you want,” the Doll says with an empty smile. His fingers flutter along Jiang Cheng’s jaw, tracing the lines of his face. “Would you ever think to ask love of a chair or of a teacup? And I’m less real than those things. Why would you ask that of me?” 

Jiang Cheng reaches up and grasps the Doll’s hand, holding it against his jaw. 

“I’ll be real enough for the both of us, then. And if you can’t give me your love, then I will give you mine.”

There are no words in response, just a silent tear slipping down a porcelain cheek.

* * *

He’s kneeling in the flower field, his weapons resting at his side. Doll is behind him, and they both look up to see the figure in the wheelchair watching them from next to the burning workshop. Jiang Cheng feels a pang of disappointment at the Doll’s paintings that must be nothing but ash by now. There was no chance for him to even try to save the workshop, which had been in flames from the moment he returned, but he still felt the guilt of failing to save those treasures. 

“Da-ge usually does this, you know,” Doll murmurs into his ear from behind, his fingers digging into Jiang Cheng’s shoulders. “But I wanted to be the one this time. Something for us to r— well. Something for  _ me _ to remember.” 

Jiang Cheng scoffs, but there’s no heat to it. He says nothing, just reaches up to place a hand over the Doll’s and is struck by the sensation of the Doll’s hand, somehow warm and soft despite its appearance. 

“What happens now? Do I die for good?” 

A beat of silence. 

“You get to wake up. For real, this time. No more dreams, so you better be more careful from now on.” 

The hands on Jiang Cheng’s shoulders disappear as the Doll moves to stand in front of Jiang Cheng instead of behind. He reaches into a fold of his draping robes to retrieve a single sheet of paper, with the blank back facing Jiang Cheng, and begins folding it.

“Do I get your name, at least? You’ve given me so much already.” There’s a tinge of desperation to his voice that he knows he should be embarrassed by but can’t bring himself to care about at this moment. All he knows is that he suddenly doesn’t want to leave the comfort of the dream behind, the ephemeral yet grounding presence of the Doll beside him. 

The Doll smiles, and Jiang Cheng drinks in the sight of this rare smile so often obscured by a fluttering fan. He finishes folding the paper and tucks it into a pocket of Jiang Cheng’s ragged coat. And as though Jiang Cheng had known the whole time, there’s a name to the face only inches from his. 

“Come find me when you wake up, alright? The real me.” Nie Huaisang places his warm hands against Jiang Cheng’s cheeks and he feels his own hands move up to rest on Nie Huaisang’s waist. He nods, transfixed, staring into glistening hazel eyes. They stand there for a second and an eternity, both focused on committing this moment to memory. 

Then Nie Huaisang’s grip on Jiang Cheng’s face shifts and tightens. There’s a sharp motion, and Jiang Cheng feels his vision whirl around as the base of his neck goes numb, and he’s falling. 

Huaisang’s face smiling sadly down at him.

Then, without feeling his eyes close, there’s nothing but darkness.

* * *

It’s dawn. 

Jiang Cheng wakes slumped against a fountain in the city square, his ears ringing and every muscle in his body more sore than its ever been. Inch by agonizing inch he pushes himself upright, leaning heavily against the cold stone fountain. 

And it’s strange. It’s dawn, something that should be so unremarkable. The sun rises and sets every day, the only constant in so many people’s lives. The only constant in his life, perhaps. And yet, some part of him aches beyond the physical pains, a relief so deep in his soul that he almost collapses from it. When did he fall asleep at the fountain, and why had he slept in such a place? He has no answer for himself, and he furiously pats at his pockets for any clue or indication. The crinkle of paper gives him pause, and he reaches into a pocket to bring out a neatly folded piece of paper. Carefully unfolding the sheet reveals a beautiful painting in blank ink, of a workshop nestled amongst a beautiful dreamscape garden filled with plants that he’s sure, even with his limited knowledge, that have no place in reality. 

A memory of warm hands against his cheeks and a whisper in his ear surfaces and he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, pressing the painting close to his chest. 

There’s a moment where he feels the entire world is still, with only the sound of distant birdsong he hadn’t realized he missed and the sensation of morning dew cool against his skin.

Then he straightens his back and steps into the soft daylight, to find his dream in reality. 

**Author's Note:**

> i've never really written anything before but the idea really gripped me; it feels a bit ooc ngl but i had fun :')
> 
> im on twt @yuanmau
> 
> thank you for reading! <3


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